The presently disclosed embodiments are directed to the field of vehicle front end assemblies, and particularly to front bumper fascias and support members therefor.
Front vehicle assemblies are designed to meet a variety of requirements. The assemblies must absorb shocks and impacts from collisions. The assemblies must also have provisions for accommodating and supporting numerous components such as certain engine components, driving lights, vehicle accessory lights, hood engagement mechanisms, and depending upon the vehicle, may include various structures for improving vehicle aerodynamics. In addition, front vehicle assemblies are designed to exhibit favorable aerodynamic characteristics themselves, even if they are to receive additional aerodynamic components such as air dams or the like. Furthermore, vehicle front assemblies should be attractive and exhibit desirable aesthetic qualities.
Front bumper fascias are typically large panels that are designed to extend across the front of a vehicle, cover the shock absorbing components, improve vehicle aerodynamics, and provide an attractive appearance. Front bumper fascias are preferably one-piece, integrally formed components. A trend in the current vehicle market, is to use these large, one-piece front bumper fascias since they can be readily formed by injection molding techniques and designed to exhibit attractive styling and good aerodynamic properties.
One-piece bumper fascias are becoming increasingly complex. That is, many current vehicle fascias exhibit an array of compound curvatures and changing shapes at different regions of the fascia. This trend, coupled with such fascias being a single, integral piece, requires unique supporting structures for such fascias. Various designs have been proposed for supporting such fascias to a vehicle support frame or other member, such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,061,108; 5,580,109; 6,997,490; and 7,273,246. Although satisfactory, a need remains for yet further improvements in supporting a geometrically complex vehicle fascia.
More recently, increasing demands for lighter weight vehicles has prompted the use of fascias with thinner walls. It is typical for vehicle fascia walls to be less than 5 mm, less than 4 mm, and in certain applications, less than 3 mm. A consequence of using such relatively thin fascia walls, is that the resulting fascia is less rigid and thus prone to excessive deformation. Although a low rigidity and relatively flexible fascia can be made rigid by using an abundance of support members, the greater the number of support members used, the more complex is the resulting assembly. Such complex assemblies are time consuming and expensive to install.
Accordingly, a need exists for a single support member that can support a relatively large region of a front vehicle fascia, such as a front bumper fascia, to thereby eliminate the requirement for multiple support members and the attendant complexity, assembly time demands, and costs associated therewith.
A particular difficulty in supporting a geometrically complex fascia is the large number of peripheral regions resulting from an irregular fascia perimeter or outer edge. These peripheral regions typically extend within three dimensions. For example, a fascia having non-linear perimeter edges for accommodating an adjacent hood or light assembly presents regions of material in multiple dimensional planes that if not sufficiently supported, can fracture or deform if excessively loaded, can create unacceptable dimensional tolerances with respect to adjacent panels, excessively vibrate, and detract from the overall aesthetics of the vehicle.
Therefore, a need exists for a single support member that can support a peripheral region of a geometrically complex fascia, to thereby impart structural rigidity to that region and the rest of the fascia, maintain as-installed dimensional tolerances between the fascia and adjacent panels, and render that region relatively immune to excessive vibration.